Hi everyone!
With people sharing ideas across various threads/boards about reducing overseas shippings costs, I thought it might be a nice idea to make a dedicated thread for people still looking at purchasing CDs internationally at the minimum cost
Please bear in mind that these are only suggestions, and that not everyone will be able to afford to make these changes to their purchases.
1) The most obvious choice to make bigger and less regular purchases, thus decreasing the number of per order charges (POCs)
2) If you are a follower of the
Doctor Who: Main Range and still have numerous stories to catch up on, it is more financially worthwhile to try catching up on your backlog than keeping up to date (please refer to the 'New Subscription Options' thread:
notthebigfinishforum.freeforums.net/thread/1922/new-subscription-options ). It is significantly cheaper to buy older releases in bulk, as they will get reduced shipping (which brings me to my next point)
3) Pre-ordering/subscribing to ongoing ranges, although it's nice to keep up to date, is not as viable an option as it was before. Instead, you are better off waiting for the whole series to be released and then purchasing the series bundle (or in the case of the
Main Range, wait for the stories you want in your subscription to be released before making a Retro sub). Bundles/Retro subs are shipped all at once, and as such the postage cost is only that of one large item, as opposed to many separate individual CDs. My prime example of this is the
Main Range, but it also applies to ranges like
Torchwood (when
Series 3 is released next year) and the
Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 6; as a comparison, the
Series 6 subscription is considerably more expensive the buying than the
Series 5 bundle, as
Series 5 is all shipped as one. This option does unfortunately mean that we will not be able to listen to any of the releases until the entire series has been released, which prevents us from joining in on discussions on the forum (and increases the likelihood of spoilers); however, from a monetary point of view, it is the most sensible option.
Update 1:
4) If you are considering making an order in the near future and a sale you are interested in appears, you are better off only buying sale items at that time, and waiting to make your original order as you had planned the next time the funds are available. Though you might be able to afford one or two items from the future order now, you will save yourself an whole POC in the 'long run'.
Update 2:
Check the prices of shipping bundles items individually (see
Post 3 for details). The cost of shipping items individually in the same order may actually be cheaper than bundle shipping costs.
Any ideas beyond this point are conjecture and should not be considered reliable until proven (And, sadly, they are false)
5) Instead of making pre-orders at the end of each month for the following months' releases, make these orders at the start of the proceeding month to those releases. (The theory being that they can fit all these releases into the same parcel/box to save on shipping)
6) When sales come around that you're interested in, maybe consider throwing in some other old release/s that you've had your eye on. Along with the reduced price of the sale items, you should also be able to squeeze a certain number of other items into the order without increasing the shipping costs. (The theory being that, depending on the volume of sale items, they can fit other releases into the same parcel/box)If anyone else has any ideas please feel free to share them (I know that I, at least, will greatly appreciate them
)
